I just got an interesting note from Heritages’s Tuesday auction.Lot 34183 was described as:

Quote:

Unknown Issuer; Unknown Location 4¢ circa early 1800s. The only thing known about this note is its denomination, four mills. Very Fine. Estimate: $40 - $60.

This note has a denomination of 4 mils, that is, 0.4 cents (not 4 cents as used in the description). Mils refers to 1/1000’s of a dollar in this case. Durand’s book on Denominations lists this note as “excessively rare” and “virtually uncollectible”. Having this information from this book paid for it many times.

Durand also says that these scrip notes were thought to have been issued during the War of 1812.

It looks like someone had written something on the bottom 2 lines and it was subsequently erased.

The Indian on the left seems to show up on many notes of the 1830's and early 1840's. It is also on the Niagara Suspension Bridge Bank.

There might actually be a connection between Benjamin Rathbun (mentioned before) of Buffalo and Texas. After the Buffalo fiasco and the depression of 1837, one of his relatives went to Texas. I have been searching to find the possible connections.

Fully issued note. Small format scrip note. 138mm by 45mm. Top center, crude block vignette of quarter cut Eight Reales coin centered between two "25" counters. Bolded initials "E" and "W" at the top. End panels with dots between ornate scroll. Engraved date and signature space at lower right. Haxby-Not listed. Hughes-Unlisted. Hatie-Not listed. High Rarity 7 (1 to 3 known). An extremely important type and one of the greatest rarities in this collection. We have seen less than six "cut bit" style notes, all on Kentucky, in 20 plus years. The survival rate of such emergency scrip was pure happenstance. This miracle of survival was an very important purchase for the Schingoethes in 1998 at the Hatie Sale. It brought $1,150, far and away the highest price achieved for a single note in the collection. The paper quality and brightness are strong. There is some ink corrosion at the left from a back signature. Overall, a tremendous example for such a great rarity. There was no note on this issuer in the Glenn Martin Collection either (based on the Hughes listings) sold by Lyn Knight. This is one of the ultimate "Two Bits" notes in any collection and has followed an illustrious pedigree chain for several decades.

I was just getting ready to make a thread about denominations. It seems there were a wide variety of denominations used for currency....What is this book being referenced? Hopefully this one won't be in the 4 digit range like the last one I found out about, LOL. (thanks again Bernie!) I would be interested in reading about denominations used on obsoletes or barring that even just seeing a listing of denominations issued.

Roger Durand has published a number of paperbacks over the last few decades about obsoletes, each title beginning "Interesting Notes about..." Three volumes of vignettes, one about Christmas representations, etc. One of these is Denominations, and that's the book we're referencing. The publishing runs were limited (300 copies of each?), but they aren't impossible to find, and they run about $30 each. Tom Denly and Hugh Shull each usually have various volumes in stock, but I don't see either of them listing the Denominations volume at the moment. But keep your eye out on ebay -- they show up about once a month.

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